Irreconcilable Indifference
by EOlivet
Summary: It -- or she -- was supposed to be "worth it."


Disclaimer: The characters described herein are the property of Hank Steinberg (who _must_ write more!), Jerry Bruckheimer Television Productions (who should produce more movies, but not TV) and CBS (who deserve to be #1 with those two talented men on their roster)  
  
Timeline: A few months after FO2, although it's sort of a response to a line in MO.  
  
Rating: TV-PG. Jack and Samantha pairing.  
  
Acknowledgments: Many thanks to S for helping me clarify, and being the best cheerleader this side of Joan of Arcadia. ;) Thanks as always to D and MSt for saying such nice things.  
  
***  
  
Irreconcilable Indifference  
  
***  
  
Her first day back, she was greeted with the door.  
  
She hadn't really adjusted to her cane, and had taken the turn too quickly -- losing her footing so that she pitched forward into his door. Straightening herself, she smoothed down her outfit, and her nerves, and walked in.  
  
He barely looked up. "Welcome back." The papers on his desk reclaimed his attention.  
  
"Thank you," she replied, tersely -- trying to act as indifferent as he was. Her eyes wandered around the room, trying to avoid him, but then stopped -- freezing on one image in particular.  
  
Or rather, two.  
  
Two different picture frames prominently displayed behind his desk, saying more than he could ever tell her.  
  
Now her words were gone as well, and they both sat there in silence. A wall had crept up between them in her absence, and these two pictures had provided the foundation.  
  
After another minute, he gave her a questioning glance. Perhaps wondering what she was still doing in his office. But as much as she wanted to leave...her eyes remained fixed on the picture that was so different, the one she hadn't seen in...more than a year.  
  
"I, uh, barely recognized you," he offered, sheepishly -- gesturing at her cane. She guessed it was supposed to be a joke. "You look...different."  
  
_I'm_ different?, she thought, her gaze still locked on that picture. "So do you." Shifting her eyes in his direction for a moment.  
  
"Your hair is...longer." His newfound awkwardness only fortified the wall.  
  
"I was gone for a while," she shot back, willing his eyes to travel with hers to this very different picture he'd somehow rediscovered.  
  
When he again looked down, she sighed audibly. "I'm gonna..." she gestured toward the door, before walking out as determinedly as she could with a cane.  
  
Nothing was the same -- not the office, not her desk and certainly not what was left of their relationship. He said it himself: he barely recognized her.  
  
His words reverberated in her ears, over and over -- pulling her from her walk to the subway after work. Her feet moved on instinct, up and down the aisles before she reached her destination, and intentionally selected a box with a brown-haired woman -- one who looked very different from her.  
  
He thought she had looked different before...  
  
She opened the box as soon as she got home, unable to wait any longer to wash his voice out of her head, and send everything he'd said to her down the drain. Taking back a part of herself he himself said he barely recognized. It was at least some defense against that wall and those two different pictures now fortifying his desk. Nothing was the same, nothing...  
  
"Wow, look at your hair!" Danny remarked the next day -- her second day back at the office.  
  
Attempting a smile, she replied, "Is that good or bad?"  
  
"It's-- good -- it looks good," Danny enthused. "Any particular reason?"  
  
"I need a reason to change my hair color?" She tried very hard not to snap at him.  
  
He held up his hands in surrender. "Hey -- I was just asking. It looks good -- who cares about the reason?"  
  
Vivian was likewise polite. Jack, of course, didn't comment either -- though she thought she saw a flash of shock in his eyes. Barely recognize me now?, she wondered.  
  
All those nights he'd stroked her hair, every time it had brushed against his bare chest as they moved together. Every teasing, soothing, arousing touch was marked with a touch of possession -- as if her hair was meant for his hands alone. She wondered if he knew how much the gesture had meant to her.  
  
But that was who she used to be. Now, no part of her belonged to him anymore.  
  
Martin said nothing. Idly, she wondered if he even noticed. Then a couple times during the day, she thought she'd caught him staring at her, but every time she made eye contact -- challenging him to say something, he'd simply shake his head.  
  
After it had happened for the fourth or fifth time, she finally called him on it. "You got something you want to tell me, Martin?" Her patience was rapidly thinning.  
  
Her colleague merely shook his head once more. "You think it worked?"  
  
"What?" She was too confused to be angry.  
  
He gave her a highly skeptical look. "Your hair," he replied, knowingly.  
  
Dissmissively, she hobbled to the other side of the room. "I don't see what the big deal is," she protested, trying not to sound defensive. "Did anyone give Vivian a hard time when she grew out her hair?"  
  
"Her situation was slightly different."  
  
Samantha whirled around, but stayed on the opposite side of the room, folding her arms coolly. Daring him to elaborate.  
  
He didn't, but his eyes made the mistake of resting on her cane. So now he was "diagnosing" her. Had Danny and Vivian done the same? As if it was that simple.  
  
"You think it's about the shooting?" she questioned, laughing a little. "Brunettes don't get shot, but blondes do."  
  
"I didn't say that," Martin pointed out.  
  
But she barely heard him. "I do something to my hair and suddenly everybody thinks I'm unstable," she ranted -- half at Martin, half at her absent colleagues. "If I buy a new pair of shoes, are you going to put me on suicide watch?"  
  
"Oh, come on--"  
  
"What if I change my shampoo?" Her voice oozed sarcasm. "Should I be locked up then?"  
  
"Samantha." Somehow, Jack had appeared in the back of the room, almost directly behind her.  
  
Before her boss could say anything further, she awkwardly stalked past him -- out of the room, around the corner and into his empty office. There was no way she would allow him to say anything more in front of anyone else.  
  
A couple minutes later, he joined her -- closing the door behind him on the way to his desk. She stood in front of him with her arms still folded. Refusing to take her reprimand sitting down.  
  
He looked up. "I just wanted to make sure you were OK."  
  
"What, are you questioning my competence now, too?" she snapped.  
  
Her words seemed to startle him. "No...I was just seeing if you were OK."  
  
Bewildered, she replied, tiredly, "I'm fine."  
  
He didn't respond -- instead picking up a packet of paper on his desk and thumbing through it, thoughtfully. "You did a good job on this," he commented.  
  
Instantly, her guard was back up. "Well I'd hope we didn't change the way we do reports -- I was only gone for a couple months."  
  
"Sam." He could still cut her off with one word. "What's this about?"  
  
Glancing quickly at the two pictures behind him, she tried not to lie. "It feels...different," she assented. "Everything...nothing's the same."  
  
A beat. "Not that much has changed."  
  
Everything has changed, she silently corrected him -- willing his gaze to the wall between them that he'd constructed in her absence.  
  
This time, she was sure that he had found the focus of her stare. He looked away for a second, quietly clearing his throat. "I understand why you changed your hair." Another beat, his eyes shifting to where hers had remained for the last several minutes. "It was just...something you had to do."  
  
Rising from his desk, he ventured closer -- gently touching her hair, before moving a strand of it behind her shoulder. Her eyes fluttered shut, and for a moment, it didn't feel so different, and she could pretend this was months ago -- when her hair was a different color, and his gaze held her immediate, temporary future, instead of--  
  
The pictures rebuked, repelled her back one small step. His hand dropped just as hers found the cane, propping up her legs even as her heart lay sprawled on the ground.  
  
"Welcome back, Sam," he murmured to the papers in front of him. The words coursed through her, her stare pulled to him with such an intensity that even the pictures holding her captive seemed to fade into the background. "I missed your reports."  
  
Quickly, he glanced back down at his desk, and the pictures cornered her once more. Drowning, she held onto the cane with white knuckles, trying to keep herself afloat with a smile. "It's...good to be back." The lie forced itself through her teeth -- and she didn't even wait for his response before finding the door to free herself.  
  
Danny and Vivian were still in the field and Martin had somehow thankfully left the room when she tripped her way back to her desk, collapsing in her chair with her cane at her side. As her head titled forward, that strand of hair recently tucked behind her shoulders broke loose -- falling into her field of vision.  
  
All of a sudden, it was too much. Nothing was the same, she thought -- glancing around the room. That shelf-- that shelf wasn't there before. It was in the corner. Somebody had taken it out of the corner -- but why? Didn't they understand that's where it belonged? Was there even a reason to move it? A good reason? Why couldn't people just leave things the way they were?  
  
Her feet were moving. Her hands outstretched -- pushing, shoving at another different thing that would not budge. The next thing she knew, she was being pulled by her shoulders, legs buckling as her one good leg folded beneath her, and she collapsed into another chair that seemed to magically appear from behind.  
  
Martin now stood in front of her, utterly bewildered -- almost frightened.  
  
His expression infuriated her. "That shelf used to be over there." She pointed at the space. "I was just-- stop looking at me like that! I know what you're thinking," she accused, her voice dropping. "The old Samantha never would've done this. Maybe if I hadn't gotten shot, this shelf wouldn't have moved!"  
  
Watching him grow more horrified as she spoke, she finally stopped, staying silent for a minute. "Could you tell Jack that I had to go home?" she asked in a tone calmer than she'd been all day.  
  
Her question seemed to placate him. "Yeah." Martin nodded.  
  
She went to the same drugstore, located the same aisle and selected the box with the woman who had the same color hair. On her way out, she grabbed the same bottle of shampoo because she always bought shampoo at the same time as she bought hair dye. It was just easier to remember that way.  
  
Standing over the sink, she rinsed all of the difference away -- cleansing herself with water and tears. Sitting outside the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her head until it was time to recognize herself again.  
  
Nothing was the same -- not the office or that shelf from the corner. Not her colleagues. Not Jack or those pictures, and certainly not their relationship, because there was nothing left.  
  
And of course, she too had changed. But at least now she _looked_ the same.  
  
The next morning, she awoke at the same time, and launched into the same routine. Grabbing her shampoo, she was about to step into the shower, when she noticed...this _wasn't_ the same shampoo. She'd been wandering aimlessly, going to the same place she always went and somehow she'd come back with something different.  
  
Still, it was too late. There was nothing she could do now.  
  
Besides, nobody noticed her new shampoo or her old hair when she returned to work that morning. Jack didn't even show any interest in where she'd been for the rest of the previous day. They all simply smiled and pretended like nothing ever happened.  
  
On her next trip to the drugstore for the products that helped her keep up appearances, she bought another bottle of the different shampoo. A quick survey of the shelf did not turn up her normal brand. Either they'd stopped making it, they'd moved it or she just couldn't find it anymore.  
  
This new shampoo was different. It was more expensive. But it -- or she -- was supposed to be "worth it."  
  
Because nothing was the same.  
  
The End. 


End file.
